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Emby Community Spotlight – Volume 1

sross44

Entry posted by sross44 in Emby

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Real Setups. Real Users. No Fluff.

Welcome to the first installment of our Emby Community Spotlight — a series where we highlight the unique and diverse ways people around the world are using Emby every day. From globe-trotting servers to enterprise-grade home labs, Emby users continue to push the boundaries of what a personal media server can be.

Today we are focusing on users who use Windows or Windows servers as the base for their servers! Here are three very different and impressive setups that showcase the flexibility and reach of Emby.

1. A Portable Powerhouse That Travels the World

This user lives a truly mobile life, relocating across countries every couple of years. Despite the challenges of frequent international travel, they manage to bring their Emby server (along with their entire media, gaming, and work setup) in just two suitcases and two carry-ons.

  • OS: Windows 11 Pro

  • Case: XTIA Proto L v2

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D

  • GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3090

  • RAM: 32GB

  • Storage: 80TB

  • Clients: 2x NVIDIA Shield TVs

  • TV/Sound: LG C2 OLED + Vizio All-In-One Soundbar

  • Router: ASUS ROG AX11000

This setup has successfully traveled routes like Sri Lanka → Philippines → Singapore → UK → Saudi Arabia.

“It just works. No fiddling. I tried the other options and ran into issues — Emby was the only one that delivered the experience I needed.”

The server doubles as a workstation and gaming rig. Truly a server built for work, play, and portability. Super impressive!

2. An Overbuilt Beast with Room to Grow

Built for endurance, performance, and multi-purpose use, this next user has created a server that handles everything they can throw at it!

  • OS: Windows Server 2022

  • Form Factor: 4U rackmount with 24-drive backplane

  • CPU: AMD EPYC 7F52

  • Motherboard: Supermicro H11SSL-I

  • RAM: 512GB ECC DDR4

  • Storage:

    8x 18TB SATA HDDs (pooled via StableBit DrivePool)

    2x 2TB NVMe SSDs (write cache)

  • GPU: NVIDIA Quadro P2200

  • Clients: Fire TV Sticks, Samsung Smart TVs, iOS/Android devices, browser

“It’s probably overkill for Emby, but I didn’t want to rebuild it for a long time. Transcoding is so seamless you can’t even tell it’s happening.”

After 8 years of using Emby, this setup reflects confidence, stability, and the desire to build once and build well. Live TV via HDHomeRun was described as effortless, and streaming performance is as smooth as it gets.

3. A Well-Rounded Home Media Hub

This setup strikes the perfect balance between performance and practicality. Used primarily in-home across multiple client devices, it serves a large personal media collection with plenty of horsepower under the hood.

  • OS: Windows 11 (24H2)

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

  • Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 AORUS Ultra

  • RAM: 64GB G.Skill DDR4 @ 3600 MHz

  • GPU: EVGA RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra

  • Storage: 40TB HDDs + 7TB NVMe SSDs

  • Clients: 5 in-home devices, occasional remote access via Tailscale

  • Library: ~2,000 movies, 800,000 photos, 30,000 personal videos, 50,000 songs

“I’ve been using Emby for about 5 years. Most of the time it’s just running quietly in the background, but when I need to access it remotely, it’s ready. It handles everything I throw at it.”

This server doubles as a central storage hub and personal archive, with exceptional performance for both local and occasional remote streaming.

Have a Setup Worth Sharing?

We will be featuring more community builds in this ongoing series shortly! Whether you’re running Emby on a mini PC, cloud server, or something no one’s thought of yet, we want to hear from you. 

Join the forum conversation and submit your setup to be included in a future spotlight.

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5 Comments

Recommended Comments

mikeraburn

mikeraburn 71

Posted

Excellent information!

I  am so out of touch of what is what anymore/

  • Like 1
  • Agree 1
TMCsw

TMCsw 246

Posted

Just curious? Way are all these based on AMD CPU's + Nvidia GPU's, when an Intel CPU c/w (included) iGPU (UHD 7x0 or better) will work better, is much cheaper, uses way less  power...

Even an ARC A/B### is better (mostly for upgrades)... ...for emby.

BTW, I do get that AMD may be better for gaming, but not for transcoding. (don't tell me that emby is used for gaming as I've never seen a positive comment on the gaming plugin)

 

Jdiesel

Jdiesel 1431

Posted

 

2 minutes ago, TMCsw said:

Just curious? Way are all these based on AMD CPU's + Nvidia GPU's, when an Intel CPU c/w (included) iGPU (UHD 7x0 or better) will work better, is much cheaper, uses way less  power...

Even an ARC A/B### is better (mostly for upgrades)... ...for emby.

BTW, I do get that AMD may be better for gaming, but not for transcoding. (don't tell me that emby is used for gaming as I've never seen a positive comment on the gaming plugin)

 

Lots of us use our servers for tasks beyond just Emby and Intel's use of P and E cores and recent generations have been disappointing for CPU intensive and multi-core workloads.

sross44

sross44 429

Posted

1 hour ago, TMCsw said:

Just curious? Way are all these based on AMD CPU's + Nvidia GPU's, when an Intel CPU c/w (included) iGPU (UHD 7x0 or better) will work better, is much cheaper, uses way less  power...

Even an ARC A/B### is better (mostly for upgrades)... ...for emby.

BTW, I do get that AMD may be better for gaming, but not for transcoding. (don't tell me that emby is used for gaming as I've never seen a positive comment on the gaming plugin)

 

These are just a small sample of the personal setups we're sharing. In this one, I just took a small focus on similar setups and the various uses for these. As someone else noted these servers are used for more than just Emby. Gaming rigs, home labs, etc. Everyone has different uses and demands so we are going to be sharing a lot of different use cases over the coming weeks. 

dibz8765

dibz8765 3

Posted

For those of us with older servers it's cheap and easy to buy a low profile dedicated GPU and drop it in there then it is to upgrade the server. You really don't need the latest and greatest to run something like Emby, at least for a household and not too many parallel streams.

  • OS: Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS

  • CPU: Xeon E5645 @ 2.40GHz x2

  • Motherboard: Supermicro X8DTN+

  • RAM: 48GB

  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

  • Storage: A little complicated since this server is used for quite a few things. 11x12TB, 12x6TB, 1x120GB SSD, 3x3TB, and 3x24TB; spread over a 12 bay back plane and a 24 bay disk shelf. For Emby concerns, there is 215TB for bulk storage of media, and a shared 6TB of fast storage for Emby itself.

  • Clients: 5 in-home devices, 6 if you count music-only. 1 remote.

  • Library: 1970 movies, 1956/51630 shows/episodes. A large portion of which is from my own owned media, remuxed by myself.

Granted, most of my clients do not need to transcode and can directly play most things. I simply don't see the need/want to "downgrade" via transcoding media that I purchase and remux to have in the highest quality available. 😀

  • Like 1

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